O`hare Safety: `A` For Effort

April 28, 1989

Safety at O`Hare International Airport is not yet at the level it should be, but conditions are improving after last year`s record number of controller errors, Sen. Paul Simon (D., Ill.) said Thursday.

Simon, who released a federal report on the airport at a press conference in the Kluczynski Federal Building, said that ``the report card for O`Hare . . . is an `A` for effort.``

However, the senator acknowledged that a threatened cut in a proposed pay increase could hurt efforts to recruit experienced controllers from other major airports to understaffed O`Hare.

The original wage incentive proposal called for 20 percent raises in a 5- year test period. That has been scaled back in the House to 10 percent in a two-year experiment.